My computer keeps randomly rebooting itself

I am operating on Windows XP Professional. I have no idea if I actually have Service Pack 2 or not. I just updated my computer with auto update less then an hour ago and it didn't mention it. Basically it just reboots at random, but sometimes it has done it when I tilted the computer to plug something in, when I lightly bumped the desk, when I put in a DVD, when I opened a folder, and I can't think of any other times that it wasn't entirely random. It may do it at any second, actually. So I'll just leave it at this for now and see what anyone has to offer for advice. Oh, and the computer is brand new, I've had it for about 3 months or maybe a little more, and it just started doing this about 2 or 3 days ago tops. Could be a virus, but that seems a little strange. When it does reboot, it usually reboots about 2 to 4 times before windows ever comes back up again. Even when I turn it back on after a full shutdown it reboots a few times and finally asks me how to boot (last known good method, normal, etc.). I don't recall it ever doing this while I was playing Age of Empires III online though. It's like it kinda waited until I closed the game. I messed with the startup through Run/msconfig, but I set it all back to normal since then. Still, I don't remember it doing any of this before then. I left the computer idle a couple times, once for about 30 minutes to an hour, and it rebooted itself like 5 times every few minutes or so. It was rediculous!!! This is a seriously annoying problem! Any ideas?

is it a Dell..?


Power supply is to small.

I messed with the startup through Run/msconfig, but I set it all back to normal since then.

If your running XP you can uncheck everything…

It's not a Dell. I picked out the parts and had it put together at a computer store.

Ok.. good deal. Do you remember what power supply picked out..? like a 300watt or 400watt. Also, have you opened it up to make sure nothing may have got caught up in the fan on the CPU..or maybe one of the cards is seated securely?

I've got a 400W. Haven't opened it up yet, but the fans seem to be working ok. I'll try opening it up and making sure it's clean anyways, though. So far it hasn't rebooted itself while I've been using it today. I've had it up for about 30 minutes or so two times today. Now it is having a hard time booting up though. The top DVD writer drive sounds like it's REALLY working hard for no good reason at all while booting up. Still reboots about 2 to 3 times before successfully making it to windows, but I guess that's a slight improvement. After I clean it we'll see what it does and I'm going to leave it on for a long time to see if it reboots once windows is up anymore. Could that DVD writer be causing all this somehow?

Well.. its quite possible but theres to many other possibilities to check first.. The way you describe it.. it sounds like either a dead short or loose plug/wire to me. From here, I would start over and do so with the basics (as experience has shown me that overlooking the obvious does happen and often) Check the power cord from the tower to the wall.. make sure it fits snug into its socket in the wall/power strip/surge protector or what have you. Next, follow it into the tower and make sure it fits into the power supply good and snug. From there, open the tower up and visually run down what plugs you can see starting at the power supply. You will have the J1 .. or the largest plug off the p/s which goes directly to the board. If that plug is loose you will be able to see it were it plugs into the board. Next, check and make sure the ATX plug is on and snug (ATX is 4 wires, plug is square and normally the wires are colored two yellow and two black). From there check each of the molex's that go into each drive carrying the power (4 wires..yellow, red, black, black) and make sure those fit snug. Now..make sure your drives are configured properly after you check the power to them. And by that I mean, make sure that they are inline.. from the IDE to the end of the ribbon cable..like so: cd-drive harddrive xIDE1x==SLAVE==MASTER cd-drive harddrive xIDE2x==SLAVE==MASTER (its important that your drives be configured as shown above. This is the correct way to have them. If you have .. for instance ..both of your cd drives on one IDE..you will not be able to "Burn on the Fly" and take a chance of seriously damaging your board. Now.. that "chance" I speak of is not very likely to happen with the chipset technology we have today but let me explain how that works so you'll know. When your burning a CD, all the information gets written to the buffer (the BUS) first. One BUS can not hold all that information and if it forces it, its quite possible (maybe not probable but…) that it may corupt the BUS. In english that means basically that it will reset BUT.. you HAVE to corupt a BUS in order for it to reset, and when you do a hrad reset like that.. you take the chance of the BUS not being recoverable.) If alls well there.. then check and reseat if ness. all the plug-n-play cards .. like video card.. ram.. network adapter.. etc. when all is well there, and with tower still open.. power up and check immeadiately the CPU fan and make sure its blowing… Now if all above is right and good.. and your still having problems.. then make sure the board itself is not sitting on anything metal.. if its an ATX (which I am sure it is) then the board needs to be sitting on plastic spacers.

Ok, I've opened it up and cleaned the fans the best I could with a Q-tip and airduster. They were pretty dusty, but not clogged. The Power cord from the CPU to the surge protector is good. Then I tried plugging into an actual wall socket and got the same problem. On the inside of the case everything appears to be plugged in good and snug. The p/s is in a small metal box, but the fat wad of multi colored wires (J1?) appears to be plug good and firm into the motherboard. Not too sure what the ATX or molex's are since there are several things in here with red, yellow, black and black wires, but they are all plugged in firmly. Now on the Cd drives, I don't know anything about how that whole slave and master thing works, I just see it on the computer all the time. BUT, I do see that one ribbon goes from the top drive (Burner), straight to the 2nd drive (DVD player), then straight to the motherboard. I'm guessing that this is not the way you said it is supposed to be configured, though. One thing I have noticed during it's many attempts to boot up before succeeding is a thing that flashes on the screen for like half a second that says: IDE 1 (not detected) IDE 2 (not detected) IDE 3 (not detected) IDE 4 (not detected) But that's kinda odd since I can still use all my drives when the computer is actually working for more than 5 minutes at a time. Don't know if that even has anything to do with the problem or what all that means, or even how long it's been doing that, but since you mentioned something about IDE's, just thought I'd let you know. Also it still asks me how I want to boot windows half the time. Not too sure how to check or reset my RAM or video cards or sound card or anything, but they all appear to be plugged nice and snug in there too. I powerd it up and all the fans are blowing good. As for the motherboard, it is an ASUS, and the case says it is a " Codegen Group Briza Series Silver ATX Mid-Tower Case. 400W ATX12V Power Supply." I think the whole thing is aluminum. There is a large plate right behind the motherboard that seems to be made out of the same stuff the rest of the case is (aluminum I'm pretty sure it said), but it isn't directly touching the plate. I looked between the two the best I could (the front and top part of the case appear to be one solid piece and the cd drives and empty slots are connected to the front part so it is impossible for me to take the top off without completely dissassembling the whole thing. Very annoying!!!) and the board looks like it has goldish colored metal screws attached all to the back connecting it to the aluminum board. The computer has been working perfectly for around 3 months or so now, though. So if this is the problem, then could it have just now taken effect? How hard would it be to replace that plate with a plastic one? Well, I left the computer on for a good while yesterday and eventually it caved in and started rebooting every minute or 2 and then pretty much constantly. I'm using my older computer right now to use these forums since I don't trust that new one for now. Do you reccomend doing a system restore just to see if that will solve it? It may be because of that time I messed with the startup procedure, but I know I did exactly what the microsoft help page told me to do. Just configured it to do a "clean restart" and then switched it back to normal. Real tempted to give that system restore or recovery or whatever a try though since there's really nothing on there but games now anyways and I can always reinstall them later. I've still got the discs to my graphics car, sound card, and modem, so I should be able to set everything back up, right?

ok joe .. im just checking in right now and probably wont be back till later on this evening. However I skimmed over your post. I really made a bigger issue of the drive sequence than I probably should have BUT.. what I said is correct and you need to either swap drives (if you have 4 physical drives) or take the cd drive that is in the MIDDLE of the IDE cable that has them both on it and plug it in to the MIDDLE of the other IDE. The drives on the end of the cable should be set to master.. the ones in the middle to slave…They are more than likely set to CS (Cable Select). This should make a very, very, noticable difference. Depending on what you changed in msconfig, you should be fine. Its not recommended to enable and disable services there, in fact I stress to NEVER to alter services under msconfig. But like I said previously (i think ..may have been in another thread) With XP you can uncheck everything in startup, and at the very least that will do is improve performance. So I wouldnt worry with that to much. Now, If the IDE cables are long enough, then you wont have to worry about switching the drives themselves around. However, it is probably best you do pull each one out.. one at a time.. and configure the jumpers correctly

Ok, cool. I'll go ahead and swap that cable between the two cd drives. How do I configure the jumpers?

Alright, it was real stiff and a REAL tight squeeze but I managed to switch the IDE cable (big fat wide stiff flat one) between the two cd drives. I fully fired it up and resetted it about 4 times and had no problems at all while booting up. It still hasn't done that crappy random reboot thing yet either, but I'm still going to leave it on for a while to see what it does. Keeping my fingers crossed, but that seems to have fixed it so far. There is a skinny gray wire that hooks into the burner drive like a phone hooks into a phonejack. Should I switch that to the DVD player too? It seems to be working fine just like it is though.

Alright, I ran the computer for a while last night and it only rebooted twice at random. Still started up just fine all the way through though. Today it had to boot two times in a row before reaching windows, and the second time it asked how to boot windows. This only happend once out of about 3 times though, the other two times it booted up just fine. Still keeping an eye on it.

Ok, it is still rebooting itself randomly every once in a while (15 to 45 minutes?) while I have been just sitting here on the internet or leaving the computer idle for a minute.